Back to basics: Why every student and professor should ride a bicycle on a University Campus?

M. Jagadesh Kumar, Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi-110016  http://web.iitd.ac.in/~mamidala

If you happen to visit Paris next time, try cycling across the Paris city using the bicycles offered by Velib, an initiative run by Paris Town Hall since 2007. This is a big bicycle sharing facility in the world with 20,000 bicycles at your service 24/7. You can move around the entire Paris city with bicycles available in 1800 bicycle stations at every 300 meter distance [1]. With growing vehicular congestion, rising fuel costs and choking pollution, the homo sapiens are now increasingly drawn to the good wheels. There are many cities in the world which are bicycle friendly such as Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Copenhagen, Paris in Europe and Boulder, Chicago, Davis, Ottawa, Portland, San Francisco in North America, Beijing in Asia, Cape Town, Bogota and Perth in Australia [2].

London city in the United Kingdom has implemented a bicycle sharing scheme known as Barclays Cycle Hire or BCH in 2010. In 2012, BCH had about 8000 bicycles with 570 docking stations [3].  Barcelona’s new transport system, known as Bicing has more than 400 bike stations placed strategically near bus stops and metro stations [4].  Many North American cities are actively promoting increased use of bicycles as an alternative mode of transportation through large public campaigns and by investing in bicycle infrastructure and bicycle sharing programs [5]. In Munster, a German town with a population of 273,000, people use bicycles more often (37.8%) than cars (36.4%) as the main mode of transportation [6].

Despite the fact that the world is rediscovering the wheels without fuel, India seems to be going the other way – the automobile style.  The economic survey of Delhi (2012-2013) tells us a disturbing trend – the number of households in Delhi owning a bicycle has come down from 37.6 % in 2001 to 30.6 % in 2011 [7].  This is either because India is advancing economically letting more people to own motorized vehicles or Indian roads are becoming notoriously the least safe places to ride any vehicle, leave alone bicycles.   Safety of bicyclists is of no concern to the road planners in India anyway [8,9] and that perhaps acts as the biggest deterrent to the people to “hit” the road on their bicycles.

Not hearsay – It is scientific:

While you do not have to be a rocket scientist to realize that using bicycles for transport in place of fuel based vehicles has vast benefits in terms of health and environment, there are indeed systematic scientific studies to quantify such paybacks.  A contemporary scrutiny in New Zealand using the data available in the urban settings shows that a mere shift of 5% of the distance travelled by vehicles to bicycling would lead to a reduction of approximately 223 million kilometers travelled by vehicles each year. This can result in a saving of about 22 million liters of fuel and therefore a reduction in the transport-related greenhouse emissions [10].

A number of investigations also confirm the individual and population-level health benefits of using bicycles.  A recent analysis of Swedish children, conducted over a period of 6 years, has shown that those who used bicycles to commute to the school have improved their cardiorespiratory fitness more than those using passive modes of commuting including walking [11]. Bicycling has also been shown to reduce the cardiometabolic risk factors leading to a potential prevention of type 2 diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular disease (CVD) [12]. Bicycling leads to less weight gain particularly among overweight and obese women [13].

But where are the safe roads for bicycle riders?

A study of bicyclists in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area has shown that well-connected neighbourhood streets and bicycle specific infrastructure has encouraged more adults to bicycling for utilitarian purposes [14]. Safe roads are, therefore, an essential pre-requisite for popularizing bicycle usage. Changing the Indian road landscape to make them bicycle friendly is not in our hands as individual citizens. The best we could do is to create awareness and bring pressure on the policy makers to act. Like many other peaceful public campaigns or agitations, we never know how long it would take for public pressure to succeed in bringing such changes to make the Indian road bicycle friendly. We, however, cannot keep waiting eternally. But, as individuals and small communities consisting of students, staff and faculty in Universities and higher educational institutes, can we do something to bring the bicycling back into our lives?

If you leave out the treacherous Indian roads and highways, are there any safe roads in India where we can use bicycles for short distance transport? Luckily, the answer is yes. The best places to start such initiatives could be the campuses of Indian universities and higher educational institutes where a large population of students, staff and faculty live and commute on campus. Why not make a beginning on these campuses and showcase it as a model to emulate by the rest of the society? There are many North American universities which have successfully implemented campus bicycle sharing programs [15] and they compete with each other in promoting such programs.

What about accidents even on campus roads?

Road users in India excel in disregarding the traffic rules.  Even bicycle riders need to respect the road rules! Cyclists are frequently prone to accidents, particularly if they are seen as a minority on the roads jostling for space. Most accidents involving bicyclists occur at the road intersections. However, there is now strong empirical evidence to show that the chances of a bicyclist involving in a collision with a motor vehicle are inversely proportional to the number of people bicycling on the roads – a pattern that has been shown to be consistent across the cities and countries around the world [16]. Motorists adjust their behaviour and reduce their vehicle’s speed when they see a large number of people bicycling on the roads [17].  This is another reason why more people should be using the bicycles on their campuses.

Are there any Indian initiatives?

Unlike in the American universities, which are rated for their pro-active bicycle sharing programs by the League of American Bicyclists [15], campus bicycle initiatives are not yet popular in Indian educational institutes.  An interesting initiative in Bangalore city called “Namma Cycle” is worth to take notice of by all the educational institutes with large populations on their campuses [18]. The objective of the Namma Cycle concept is to raise public awareness about environmental friendly transport options for easy connectivity.  In Kannada language, “namma” means ours.  In the place of “my bicycle” or “your bicycle”, the “our bicycle” concept is expected to encourage the idea of community sharing and community ownership of bicycles. Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore is the first top Indian educational institute which has adopted the Namma Cycle model with a modest beginning of 150 bicycles and four bicycle stations. IISc plans to soon scale up this experiment by adding additional bicycles and bicycle stations. We need more such examples. Student-led bicycle initiatives are bound to succeed since they are in a majority on any campus.

We have no road space in our campus. What can we do?

Existing campuses may not have enough road space to create dedicated bicycle specific tracks and it is easy to brush away any suggestions for introducing bicycle initiatives claiming it is too difficult to implement. In such cases, there are other options available such as “sharrows” or shared lane markings to provide guidance to both the bicyclist and motorist by means of signage painted on the road.  The sharrows are often colored, like in the Stanford University, to alert the motorists that they are expected to share the road with the bicyclists. Sharrows will also minimize the wrong-way of bicycling by encouraging the bicyclists to confine themselves to the shared part of the road. Creation of a combination of (i) sharrows on narrow roads, (ii) contiguous bicycle specific tracks on wider roads, (iii) safe intersections or round-abouts to minimize conflicts between bicyclists and motorists, (iv) secure bicycle parking spaces to minimize thefts, (v) appropriate road safety signage  and (vi) 24/7 bicycle repair stands should still be a possibility in old campuses. Remember that Amsterdam did not have a bicycle initiative program before 1970’s and commuters used only motorized vehicles. However, a sustained effort by the policy makers and the commuters has now resulted in making the city a bicyclist’s paradise in the world.

When we build new educational campuses, the regulatory authorities should make it mandatory for the Universities to create the best bicycle infrastructure including dedicated bicycle paths and vehicle free zones where only bicycling or walking is permitted. Appropriate laws and policies should be in place to prevent any new higher educational institute from building their campus without such a commitment.

Pro-active measures are the key:

The perceived opinion of others about you using a bicycle does not really affect your decision to use a bicycle.  The factors that influence the use of a bicycle depend on awareness, direct trip-based benefits and safety factors [19]. To create public awareness on the usefulness of bicycle usage, electronic media and newspapers should encourage such efforts by giving a wide publicity. Bicycle manufacturers, bicycling communities and administrators of the University campuses should join hands in bringing the bicycles back to the center-stage by creating bicycle friendly campus transport infrastructure.

Proactive support from the administrators of educational institutes would play an important role in encouraging bicycling. They need to work out policies which support and sustain bicycle infrastructure, road usage planning and restrictions on motorized vehicle usage. They need to study fresh ideas, examine alternate options suitable for the specific needs of their campuses and implement them to increase the bicycle usage. Many studies have shown a close link between proactive interventions by the administrators and increased usage of bicycles [20]. The bicycle is no longer only for the poor who cannot afford to have an automobile. It is a must possession for everyone in a futuristic 21st century which will see a sizeable proportion of the world population living in congested cities.

What are you waiting for?

If you are a campus living lucky person, stash away your car keys in the cupboard or avoid using the campus bus transport and leap onto your bicycle. Ride your bicycle with the conviction that you are bettering yourself and the planet that sustains you. Get started. Do it today. There is no time to hold your fire for tomorrow.

REFERENCES:

1. http://en.velib.paris.fr/
2. http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/05/06/bike.friendly.cities.matador/index.html
3. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/
4. http://www.tourist-barcelona.com/default15.asp?view=barcelona-transport/bicing
5. J. Strauss, L. M.-Moreno, D. Crouse, M. S. Goldberg, N. A. Ross and M. Hatzopoulou, “Investigating the link between cyclist volumes and air pollution along bicycle facilities in a dense urban core,” Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, Vol.17, pp.619-625, December 2012.
6. C. Juhra, B. Wieskotter, K. Chu, L. Trost, U. Weiss, M. Messerschmidt, A. Malczyk, M. Heckwolf and M. Raschke, “Bicycle accidents – Do we only see the tip of the iceberg? A prospective multi-centre study in a large German city combining medical and police data,” Injury-International Journal of the Care of the Injured, Vol.43, pp.2026-2034, December 2012.
7. The economic survey of Delhi (2012-2013), Chapter 12: Transport- available at http://delhi.gov.in/wps/wcm/connect/DoIT_Planning/planning/our+services1/economic+survey+of+delhi+2012-13
8. G. Gururaj, “Road Safety in India: A Framework for Action,” National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences, Publication no 83, Bangalore, 2011. http://www.nimhans.kar.nic.in/epidemiology/bisp/rsi2011.pdf
9. G. Gururaj, “Road traffic and disabilities in India: Current scenario,” The National Medical Journal of India, Vol.21, pp.14-20, 2008.
10. G. Lindsay, A. Macmillan and A. Woodward, “Moving urban trips from cars to bicycles: impact on health and emissions,” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, Vol.35, pp.54-60, February 2011.
11. P. Chillon, F. B. Ortega, J. R. Ruiz, K. R. Evenson, I. Labayen, V. Martinez-Vizcaino, A. Hurtig-Wennlof, T. Veidebaum and M. Sjostrom, “Bicycling to school is associated with improvements in physical fitness over a 6-year follow-up period in Swedish children,” Preventive Medicine, Vol. 55, pp.108-112, 2012.
12. L. Ostergaard, L. A. B.  Borrestad, J. Tarp and L. B. Andersen, “Bicycling to school improves the cardiometabolic risk factor profile: a randomised controlled trial,” BMJ Open, Vol.2, Article Number: e001307, 2012.
13. A. C. Lusk, R. A. Mekary, D. Feskanich and W.C. Willett, “Bicycle Riding, Walking, and Weight Gain in Premenopausal Women,” Archives of Internal Medicine, Vol.170, pp.1050-1056, 2010.
14. J. Dill, “Bicycling for Transportation and Health: The Role of Infrastructure,” Journal of Public Health Policy, Vol.30, pp.S95-S110, 2009.
15. http://blog.bikeleague.org/blog/2013/04/bicycle-friendly-university-ivy-league-continues-the-high-marks/
16. P. L. Jacobsen, “Safety in numbers: more walkers and bicyclists, safer walking and bicycling,” Injury Prevention, Vol.9, pp.205-209, 2003.
17. L. Chen, C. Chen, R. Srinivasan, C. E.  McKnight, R. Ewing and M. Roe, “Evaluating the Safety Effects of Bicycle Lanes in New York City”, American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 102, pp.1120-1127, 2012.
18. http://www.nammacycle.in/
19. E. Heinen, K. Maat and B. van Wee, “The role of attitudes toward characteristics of bicycle commuting on the choice to cycle to work over various distances,” Transportation Research Part D – Transport and Environment, Vol.16, pp.102-109, 2011.
20. J. Pucher, J. Dill and S. Handy, “Infrastructure, programs, and policies to increase bicycling: An international review,” Preventive Medicine, Vol.50, pp.S106-S125, 2010.

Face recognition by machines: Is it an effective surveillance tactic?

How to cite: M. Jagadesh Kumar, “Face recognition by machines:  Is it an effective surveillance tactic?” IETE Technical Review, Vol.30 (2), pp.93-94, March-April 2013.

Can you recall the last time when you tried to recognize a person’s face but failed? Sometimes we recognize the faces quickly and at other times we fail miserably. Among the several visual tasks that humans perform, face recognition is a very complex process since facial features of humans are not very distinct from each other.  How do humans recognize faces?  The right middle fusiform face area (FFA) of the brain is activated when we try to recognize faces [1]. This is an area of the brain located in the temporal lobe. In social interactions, face recognition is essential for us to know the identity, mood, sex and age of the person. It is now well recognized that humans possess highly evolved cognitive and neural mechanisms for face recognition. However, face recognition by humans based on recollection is not always correct.

A question that naturally comes to our mind is can machines be trained to recognize human faces? Human face recognition by machines has several commercial and law enforcement applications [2,3] and has been known since early 1960s. Advances in computer vision and improved sensor techniques have now led to a renewed interest in developing face recognition systems. Face recognition is much more secure since we cannot change our faces unlike a password or a magnetic swipe card which can be misused or passed on to others.

There are different methods of recognizing faces. Face recognition by machines is primarily an image analysis problem and is done either by verification or identification. In verification, you compare a face against a set of faces. In identification, a face is compared against each face in a data base. The reliability of a face recognition system depends on two critical requirements: (i) a large database of facial images and (ii) a testing procedure to evaluate the face recognition systems [4].

Three important criteria decide the effectiveness of face recognition process [5]: (1) The method used to represent the facial image to extract data, (2) Issues related to pose or facial orientation differences and (3) Whether the extracted data is embedded into a statistical shape analysis algorithm.

Faces are continuous three dimensional surfaces and we need to represent them using some effective means and convert into data. The easiest way to represent a face is to define land marks on the face such as eyes, nose and mouth and the geometrical distances and angles between them. The information obtained from land-mark representation is then transferred to a data base as a set of numbers. This method is not very effective if there are pose or illumination variations. In such a case one could use curve-based face representation where after locating a small landmark on the face, facial curves are extracted. This approach is useful in representing even difficult parts of the face such as forehead. However, most face recognition systems today use a complete surface based face representation.  One can use either an image or a mesh for surface representation of a face.

Before we quantify the facial shape using the numerical data extracted by any of the three approaches discussed above, we need to tackle the problem of facial orientation or pose. In one commonly used method, two face orientations are aligned and compared. Using a minimum of three corresponding point locations on both faces, differences in alignment are removed.  The other technique is to use an iterative method to minimize the pose differences.  One can even use data such as distances, angles and areas that are independent of facial orientations [5].

The extracted numerical data is now arranged into a series of numbers called vector descriptions and are embedded into a statistical facial space shape. Statistical shape analysis is required to estimate variability over similarly shaped faces. By calculating the distance and angle between two vector representations, we can then give a score for the similarity between two faces.

Face recognition by machines is no longer a scientific fiction. Face recognition systems have rapidly evolved in the last decade with recognition rates greater than 90 %. With the advent of 3D scanners, face recognition research has now shifted from 2D to 3D shape representation [6,7]. However, many challenges still remain to be tackled to make it robust to occlusions and multiple contexts. For example, expression, illumination and uncontrolled pose changes can result in a significant performance drop of the face recognition systems. As we age, our face changes in a non-linear way. We do not yet know how to tackle these problems effectively. Face recognition is still an evolving and open research area [8-10].

In India, research in the area of face recognition is primarily confined to few Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. While China and USA lead the face recognition research efforts, India does not find place in the top 10 countries contributing to this area. Face recognition systems are increasingly becoming important in India in view of the terrorist attacks and the rise in crime in cities particularly against women and children. We need to deploy face recognition systems at all sensitive and crowded places for conducting automated surveillance. This will help us in locating, tracking and profiling fugitives or persons who indulge in vandalism and riots. Use of face recognition systems in tandem with the data collected by the government agencies should enable us to identify any citizen of India in real time. This will not only deter those indulging in criminal activities but will also help the law enforcing authorities in quick dissemination of justice when crimes are committed.

There are of course concerns about privacy issues, such as including innocent citizens in the data bases and accumulating erroneous information about individuals [11]. Due to false positives, harmless people may be harassed if their face resembles that of suspects.  Face recognition can also be misused by commercial entities, for example, to decide which advertisement on the billboard will be of interest to you. Ethical questions too arise. Are we right in capturing facial images from public places such as markets, airports or railway stations and add to the data base without informing the individuals that their facial images are being captured? There is no clear answer. These are issues that one cannot overlook. Appropriate policies and legal provisions should be framed to prevent any private or government agencies from misusing such information to hound innocuous peace loving citizens.

When personal and public security becomes a national concern, we cannot sit back ignoring the threats. Deploying appropriate surveillance technology becomes inevitable. Without further delay, we need to significantly fund research activities in this area for building cost effective and efficient face recognition systems in India.

References:

[1] N. Kanwisher and G. Yovel, “The fusiform face area: a cortical region specialized for the perception of faces”, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, Vol.361, No.1476, pp.2109-2128, Dec 2006.

[2] R. Caldara, X. Y. Zhou and S. Miellet, “Putting Culture Under the ‘Spotlight’ Reveals Universal Information Use for Face Recognition”, PLOS ONE, Vol.5,  Article Number: e9708, March 2010.

[3] W. Zhao, R. Chellappa, P. J. Phillips and A. Rosenfeld, “Face recognition: A literature survey”, ACM Computing Surveys,  Vol.35, pp.399-459, December 2003.

[4] P. J. Phillips, H. Moon, S. A. Rizvi, P. J. Rauss, “The FERET evaluation methodology for face-recognition algorithms”, IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, Vol.22, pp.1090-1104, October 2000.

[5] D. Smeets, P.Claes, D. Vandermeulen and J.G. Clement, “Objective 3D face recognition: Evolution, approaches and challenges,” Forensic Science International, Vol.201, pp.125–132, 2010.

[6] M. De Marsico, M. Nappi, D. Riccio, and H. Wechsler, “Robust Face Recognition for Uncontrolled Pose and Illumination Changes,” IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics: Systems, Vol.43, pp.149-163, January 2013.

[7] G. Sandbach, S. Zafeiriou, M. Pantic and L. Yin, “Static and dynamic 3D facial expression recognition: A comprehensive survey,” Image and Vision Computing, Vol.30, pp.683–697, 2012.

[8] K. Ricanek, and C. B. Boehnen, “Facial Analytics: From Big Data to Law Enforcement,” Computer, Vol.45, pp.95-97, 2012.

[9] X. Zhang and Y. Gao, “Face recognition across pose: A review,” Pattern Recognition, Vol.42, pp.2876-2896, 2009.

[10] S. Mitra and T. Acharya, “Gesture recognition: A survey,” IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, Part C – Applications and Reviews,  Vol.37, pp.311-324, 2007.

[11] A. Nodari, M. Vanetti and I. Gallo, “Digital privacy: Replacing pedestrians from Google Street View images,” 21st International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR), 2012, pp.2889-2893.

The Malady of Technology in Our Lives: Is Anyone Listening?

M. Jagadesh Kumar
Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi 110016

(How to cite this article: M. J. Kumar, “The Malady of Technology in our Lives: Is Anyone Listening?”, IETE Technical Review, Vol.30 (1), pp.1-3, Jan-Feb 2013.)

Technology is defined as “Science or knowledge applied to a definite purpose” [1]. For centuries, technology has continued to affect human lives. In the recent past, communication platforms such as internet, computers, i-pods and smart mobile phones have influenced us more than any other technology [2]. As time evolves, more such technological tools will make their way into our lives and transform the way we think, interact and progress.

Technology does enhance human capabilities in terms of what humans can do now compared to what they did a few decades ago. However, integration of technology in every sphere of our life seems to be making us weaker both physically and intellectually turning us into mere consuming robots than productive human beings. While technology rapidly evolves and remains modern, we as human beings are becoming obsolete. Faster evolution of technology only adds to our feeling of inadequacy since we are constantly in a race to catch up and possess the new technological tools.

Does engaging ourselves with the modern electronic applications take away from us the power of innovation? Do we get time to reflect about ourselves and our surroundings? Does technology affect the balance between our work and leisure time since we are expected to be online and available all the time? Is our privacy being invaded unhindered? If our lives become so acculturated with technology, will we be able to continue to focus and draw attention to the issues that affect us? Doesn’t an exuberant dependence on technology make us more vulnerable? Is it not time to be serious about assessing new technologies for their impact on us? The objective of this article is to look at some of these questions briefly.

Technology makes it easier for us to accomplish many tasks without any physical and mental effort. That is a big destroyer of two things: our physical mobility and mental ability. Let me look at a few examples.

When you step on the road it is not uncommon to see nearly everyone in the streets talking or texting from a mobile phone immersed in their own virtual world. Many of us, primarily youngsters, tend to be more pre-occupied with the visual media such as online games, you-tube, i-pods and GPS enabled smart phones. The problem with this media is that information keeps changing continuously since it is a real-time media. Isn’t true that while knowledge is always bounded, imagination has no limits? However, users dependent on visual media hardly get time for reflection and imagination which are essential ingredients for developing critical thinking skills [3].

The negative effects of violence in online games, such as aggressive behaviour and lack of sensitivity to real life violence, are now well documented. While children below two years are not recommended to use technology, they end up watching TV for not less than couple of hours [4]. This makes them spend less time exploring their surroundings resulting in a reduced motor and psychological development. The practice of reading from the print media is generally declining among the children and even adults. A recent Oxford university study, involving 17,200 people, has shown that regular reading habits will likely to enhance their ability to do well academically and later in their professional careers [5].

The implications of internet addiction are well understood [6,7]. This is no different from any other forms of addiction such as alcohol or drug addiction which can play havoc with our ability to carry out our social responsibilities. We seem to be meeting too many persons in the virtual world while our conversations with people around us are on a decline. Our bonding with keypads and touch screens is only making us disconnect with the real world resulting in unexpected effects.

Social media paradoxically may lead us to social isolation. Our emotional needs cannot be met by virtual relationships. Use of too much social media technology, such as facebook, twitter and my space, momentarily increases our self-esteem and makes us loose our self-control [8]. Lack of self-control, as in the case of addictive alcohol consumption, can lead to undesirable social behaviour.

Isn’t technology supposed to enhance the existing societal and individual styles of our lives and provide solutions to our needs? The rapid integration of technology in over lives seems to be doing the opposite. Spirituality, ethics and human sciences appear to be pushed to the background by the sudden surge of technological evolution [9]. Technology makes everything a few steps nearer and as many of us continue to experience, the application of technology has often ended up as a problem embedded as part of the solution. Can we draw some lessons here?

Technology will continue to forge ahead and there is no doubt that we will adapt ourselves to the new technologies because of its innumerable advantages. However, along with the technological developments, should we not also evolve methods which will enable us to be selective about the choice of technologies? Should a technology be adopted by society just because it seems useful at the time of its entry although its future impact is poorly understood?

We often deploy a given technology, even when it is not acceptably safe and know that it will have indirect and unanticipated negative fall outs on society. Once a technology becomes widely accepted in everyday life, we also become less sensitive about the risks versus benefits reassessment and accept the risks associated with technologies without any serious thought. Today, technology has become so integrated in our lives that we seem to have acquired a completely blurred risk perception.

The transformative impact of new technologies on societies could be immense. It is not always conceivable to foresee the potential influence of new technologies while we are still mesmerized by its appealing “benefits”. However, before a technology becomes part of our everyday living and begins to influence the way we live and interact with each other, we need to assess the technology for its likely societal, environmental and economic implications. Technology assessment is about values and a deep reflection, and analysis of human survival’s interdependence on each other and nature. Kleinman defines technology assessment as “a practice intended to enhance societal understanding of the broad implications of science and technology” [10].

Universities and higher educational institutes can play an important role in innovating technology assessment methods and training of researchers to be able to carry out research and analysis. But sadly, these are issues of least prominence in our science and engineering curriculum. As Kleinman says, public engagement in technology assessment is vital too since they will bring in “life experiences and social values” which are seldom in the domain of the experts. A wider involvement in technology assessment will enable in incorporating public concerns while making policy decisions on technological evolutionary trajectories [10]. There are already evidences of how this participatory technology assessment can lead to “significant learning and opinion changes” in the evolution of emerging technologies such as nanotechnology [11].

Only when we recognize the importance of technology assessment before any new technology gets entrenched in the society, will we realize a meaningful balance between happy living and robotic existence. Technology assessment is not a one-time task but an incessant process and should evolve at a much rapid rate. Or else, we will remain to be submerged in the unanticipated outcomes of new technologies. Unfortunately, there is no adequate focus and informed discussion on these issues in the public domain except in a few cases [11, 12].

The odds against those suggesting a careful assessment and a balanced integration of technology in our lives are staggering and such advocates may even be considered as anti-technology and old-fashioned. Given the situation, it is time for a concerted effort to rethink whether to adopt technology assessment as an integral part of technology development and if so, how soon we should do it. The fertile ground to create this appreciation is the schools and colleges where we groom the future technology creators and its users.

Isn’t reaping the benefits of new technologies as important as being cognizant of their destabilizing effects? As scientists and academicians, we have an obligation to raise awareness among our youngsters and general public no sooner than later. Is anyone listening?

References:
[1] D. Banta, “What is technology assessment?”, International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care, Vol.25, pp. 7-9, 2009.
[2] J. Sullins, “Information Technology and Moral Values”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2012/entries/it-moral-values/.
[3] “Is Technology Producing A Decline In Critical Thinking And Analysis?”, ScienceDaily, University of California – Los Angeles, January 29, 2009. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090128092341.htm
[4] “Children, Adolescents and Television”, American Academy of Pediatrics, Committee on Public Education, Pediatrics, Vol.107 (2), pp.423-426, 2001.
[5] http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2011/110804.html
[6] L. Leung and P.S.N. Lee, “Impact of Internet Literacy, Internet Addiction Symptoms, and Internet Activities on Academic Performance”, Social Science Computer Review, Vol.30, Issue:4, pp.403-418, November 2012.
[7] S. W. Choi, “Internet addiction: Why we become addicted to the Internet?”, Asia-Pacific Psychiatry, Vol.4, Special Issue: SI Supplement: 1, pp.12-12, October 2012.
[8] K.Wilcox and A.T. Stephen, “Are Close Friends the Enemy? Online Social Networks, Self-Esteem, and Self-Control”, Journal of Consumer Research, Forthcoming Columbia Business School Research Paper No. 12-57, Date posted: October 3, 2012. http://ssrn.com/abstract=2155864
[9] B. Popoveniuc, “Psycho-logic within techno-logical settings,” European Journal of Science and Theology, Vol.9, pp.143-155, February 2013.
[10] D.L. Kleinman, “Rethink Technology Assessment”, Issues in Science and Technology, Vol.27, Issue: 2, pp.20-22, 2011.
[11] D.H. Guston, “Participating Despite Questions: Toward a More Confident Participatory Technology Assessment”, Science and Engineering Ethics, Vol.17, pp.691-697, December 2011.
[12] http://web.mit.edu/sturkle/techself/

An academician’s reminiscences on giving interesting and effective public lectures

How to cite this article: M. Jagadesh Kumar, “An academician’s reminiscences on giving interesting and effective public lectures“, IETE Technical Review, Vol.29 (6), pp.435-437, November-December 2012.

Whenever one gives a public lecture, in the audience, there will always be those who simply hear and those who carefully listen to what the speaker is telling.  The key challenge for a successful communicator is to convert that part of the audience who merely hear into those who pay attention to your lecture.  This is likely only if the speaker is able to persuade them into believing that there is some value in what he is saying. But how will the audience be convinced about the usefulness of the lecture? How can they be motivated to maintain an interest in your lecture until the end? How can we make the lecture engaging and gainful instead of turning it into a boring, dry and stressful exercise? The objective of this article is to reminisce from my experience all those little things we often tend to ignore but are indispensable to give an effective lecture.

Every time I give a public lecture, I make a serious effort to adhere to the following guidelines:

1. Know your audience: Generally, the audience could be of two categories:  (i) Beginners who are not well conversant with the lecture topic and (ii) Experts well-informed on the topic. The lecture needs to be tailor-made to each of these audience groups.  For beginners, I always make my lectures simple by avoiding too much of technical jargon and complicated figures. For experts, I pre-suppose certain technical background and provide only a brief introduction to my topic to put my lecture in the right context. When my audience consists of both beginners and experts, I tend to be more considerate towards the beginners.

2. Prepare well: There is truth in what Abraham Lincoln said: “If I have eight hours to chop down a tree, I would spend six hours sharpening my axe”. I often practice the lecture either mentally or by speaking out. But for this to happen, prepare the slides more than a few days before the schedule of the lecture. There is no replacement for practice. It gives you the chance to assess whether you will be able to complete your lecture within the given time slot. Running through the slides for want of time towards the end of lecture will make the audience sense that you are a bad planner. Since you have a limited time for your presentation, do not restate sentences. Each sentence you speak is important. Use as few words as possible to put across the message avoiding long winding sentences. Good preparation and practice help in accomplishing this.

3. Managing on the stage:  When you are on the stage, you cannot afford to waste your time engaging yourself rectifying a stage related problem and apologizing to the audience for the interruption in the lecture.  Before the lecture, go to the stage and get acquainted with it. For example, where do you plug-in your laptop? If your laptop fails for some reason, have you worked out an alternative?  Is there sufficient space to walk around? And so on.  In spite of your best efforts, if something still fails, while you are making things work, use a quick wit or joke to keep the audience engaged.

4. Slide preparation: Put only few key points of text on the slide. Each key point should have barely few words. As you speak, show the text step by step with a mouse click. This will prevent the audience from scanning the rest of the slide while you are still elaborating the first point on the slide. Do not read the text on the slides. The objective of text is only to trigger your thought process to speak naturally.  Make your talk more illustrative than using too much of text in the slide. Pictures and figures are more eye-catching than text. In figures, use dark colours for the lines. Shun using too many colours either for the text or the figures.  Be aware that the line colour that looks alright on the computer screen may not come out well on the projector or visual display screen. I have recurrently seen speakers using small font, wrong colour choices or unclear figures and apologizing for it. Not a desirable habit.

5. Connecting with the audience: Always, begin the lecture by describing something which relates you to the audience. Keep a smiling face. Be relaxed. Look at the audience. Speak in a clear and audible voice. Be enthusiastic. This sends a signal to the audience that you are excited about the topic you are going to share with them and creates a positive atmosphere. Modulate your voice once in a while to bring the wandering minds back to your talk. A monotonic voice is generally associated with dullness or sadness. When you are explaining something, do not stand still. Movement creates interest and makes people more observant. Use your body movements to make an appropriate link to what you are explaining. Gestures reinforce the understanding of the listener. Time and again, I noticed that some people in the audience nod their heads during the talk signalling that they are in agreement with the point I am making. My eyes keep coming back in search of them during the talk simply because of their encouraging body language which facilitates in sustaining a positive frame of mind.

6. Partition your lecture:  Divide your talk into 4 or 5 key ideas. Stick to the key points of your talk.  Present each key idea at a time and link up one key idea to the next taking the audience along with you. Build some anticipation and climax while relating one key idea to the other like in a story. Well narrated stories arouse curiosity. Use analogies and examples to explain a difficult technical point. Do not write complicated equations. Write a simpler form of the knotty equation to drive the focal point. In the end, recapitulate and show how all these key ideas complete the whole picture.  Summarizing your talk will allow the audience to take away with them the central points of the lecture than getting bogged down in the complex technical details.  If there are no key points for the audience to recall from your lecture, you have succeeded in overwhelming them with a one-sided transmission of information with no regard to their reception.

7. Think like the audience: The audience may be less knowledgeable about the topic but they are no less intelligent.  Can your audience comprehend the topic as clearly as you do? If something is clear in your mind, the words will come out with ease. The idea of your lecture is not to let the audience know that you know better than them. As a speaker, you are leading the thought processes of the audience.  “Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them” – John C Maxwell. You have been invited to give a lecture because you are ahead in knowledge on the topic. However, you cannot successfully motivate an audience faced with the challenge of understanding new information unless you think at their pace. Remember that you are not here to impress them but to give a clear talk. Acknowledging this is being considerate to the audience. When answering questions, first summarize the question to help the audience understand what the question is. Answer the questions to the point and avoid baffling the audience by conveying excessive information.

8. Humour: Lectures are not meant to be boring. Telling a joke or showing a cartoon relevant to the topic works like a wonder. Unlike what many speakers think, appropriate use of humour or wit during the lecture is not at all frivolous or undignified. People laugh and become involved because humour leads to a shared positive experience bringing even those on the fringes to pay attention to the lecture. If you are not overdoing, the use of humour during the lecture is contagious. You could even end the lecture with a humorous quote or a cartoon. Once, while speaking about the intricacies of understanding quantum mechanics, I ended my talk with the following quote by Richard Feynman “No, you’re not going to be able to understand it. . . . You see, my physics students don’t understand it either. That is because I don’t understand it. Nobody does. … The theory of quantum electrodynamics describes Nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And it agrees fully with an experiment. So I hope that you can accept Nature as She is — absurd”. The result was as expected – smiles on the faces.

Conclusion:  Effective lectures are a result of hard work and not magic. I do not see why adhering to the simple rules of planning well and being considerate will not result in a friendly rapport between the speaker and the audience making the lecture a rewarding experience to everyone involved.

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When you are done reading this, you are welcome to explore my other general articles on my blog: http://mamidala.wordpress.com/category/education-and-research/

Improving the Breakdown Voltage, ON–resistance, and Gate–charge of InGaAs LDMOS Power Transistorsr

Recently, a lateral double diffused metal-oxide-semiconductor (LDMOS) using In0.53Ga0.47As having an extended–p+ (ep+) body has been shown to be better than a conventional silicon  based LDMOS. In this paper, we show that using a stepped gate (SG) for the InGaAs LDMOS, a significantly improved performance can be
achieved than using an extended–p+ body for the InGaAs LDMOS. The proposed device has three steps with the gate oxide thickness increasing from the source to the drain. The stepped gate oxide has the following advantages: a good gate control is achieved because of the smaller oxide thickness near the source, lesser gate to drain  capacitance is possible due to the greater oxide thickness near the drain and the ON–resistance decreases as a consequence of  increased drift region doping which is possible due to the increased  thickness of the gate oxide over the drift region. The large mobility  of electrons in InGaAs also enhances the current flow and reduces the ON–resistance. Based on 2-D device simulation results, we show that the SG LDMOS using InGaAs exhibits 49.7 % improvement in the breakdown voltage, 43.8 % improvement in ON– resistance, 105.0 % improvement in the range of transconductance, 33.6 % improvement in gate charge and 60.1 % improvement in switching speed as compared to an LDMOS using InGaAS with buried–p+ body.

The complete paper can be downloaded from http://web.iitd.ac.in/~mamidala/id11.htm

Sharing of Best Practices or Plagiarism?

How to cite this article: M. Jagadesh Kumar, “Sharing of best practices or plagiarism?”, Current Science, Vol. 102, No. 12, pp.1619-1620, 25 JUNE 2012.

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If you visit the website of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi [1], you will find the following vision and mission statements.

Vision: To contribute to India and the world through excellence in scientific and technical education and research; to serve as a valuable resource for industry and society; and remain a source of pride for all Indians.

Mission:(i) To generate new knowledge and to promote academic growth by offering state-of-the-art undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral programmes. (ii) To identify, based on an informed perception of Indian, regional and global needs, areas of specialization upon which the institute can concentrate. (iii) To undertake collaborative projects which offer opportunities for long-term interaction with academia and industry. (iv) To develop human potential to its fullest extent so that intellectually capable and imaginatively gifted leaders can emerge in a range of professions.

For higher educational institutes, working towards achieving these goals is a sure way of reaching their pinnacle. But if another institute or university is preparing its vision statement, can it use exactly the above wording in the document without acknowledging the source and still not be charged with plagiarism?

On the website of the National Institute of Technology, Patna [2], you will find that its vision and mission statements are exactly the same as those of IIT Delhi, without any reference to the source. This raises some questions. Can we consider such copying of vision and mission statements as simply sharing of best practices? After all, if another university finds that the vision statement of IIT Delhi is suitable for it, why not use the statement as it is? How much different can you write it anyway? Can we be less lenient about it because such things are not done for any personal gratification? Since there are only limited English words available to rewrite the vision statement of IIT Delhi, is it alright for some other institute to copy it and claim it as theirs? Since the ideas expressed in the vision statement cannot be too different for each university, should we necessarily rewrite it differently just to avoid the charge of plagiarism?

Before we answer the above questions, let me bring to your notice an interesting case. The Southern Illinois University wanted to prepare a plagiarism policy after facing a plethora of incidents involving even its own university President for an alleged plagiarism in his Master’s and Ph D theses. When the draft on plagiarism policy of the Southern Illinois University was ready, it was reported in the media [3,4] that some parts of it have been lifted exactly word for word from a plagiarism policy document prepared by the Indiana University. How ironic! A plagiarism policy parts of which are plagiarised contents! The Southern Illinois University had to make suitable corrections by citing appropriate references including that of Indiana University [5] in its plagiarism policy before adopting it.

As a perfect example to emulate, the mission statement of IIT Madras [6] makes it clear that the broad outline of the statement is based on certain sources. For example, it states that ‘The Goals and Objectives were derived from the Sarkar Committee Report and embodied in the IIT Act. In addition to the Sarkar Committee report, the IIT act and the Statutes of the IITs indicate the lines along which IITs should develop’ and goes on to explain the mission statement. Is not this approach much safer than simply copying someone else’s vision and mission statements or policy statements? Is not some kind of attribution necessary when we borrow word for word the text or ideas as important as the vision statement or a policy statement from some other source? I think we need to be more circumspect about these sensitive issues.

1. http://www.iitd.ac.in/content/vision-mission-values

2. http://www.nitp.ac.in/vision_mission.htm

3. http://chronicle.com/article/2-Universities-Plagiarism/1486

4. http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-01-29-plagiarism_N.htm

5. http://www.siue.edu/policies/intro.shtml

6. http://www.iitm.ac.in/mission

Literal and Intelligent Plagiarism: Students Beware!

Literal and Intelligent Plagiarism: Students Beware!

M. Jagadesh Kumar, NXP (Philips) Chair Professor, Dept of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, INDIA. Email: mamidala@ee.iitd.ac.in

(How to cite this article: M. J. Kumar, “Literal and Intelligent Plagiarism: Students Beware!”,  IETE Technical Review, Vol.29 (3), pp.181-183, May-June 2012.)

Academic plagiarism has become like a viral fever that can affect even a healthy person if sufficient preventive measures are not taken. Untrained research students, who need to write good quality research papers under tight time constraints, are usually the victims. It is not uncommon for research supervisors to experience a psychological burden while approving the student’s paper for submission to a journal or a conference. Who knows if a sentence copied by the student while writing a research paper may be detected years later, subjecting the research supervisor to a great embarrassment. When the supervisor asks them to be careful about plagiarism, the students may also feel that they are being treated with suspicion. Let us look at how incautious writing of a research paper can lead us to this potential plagiarism risks.

You write a research paper when your experiments are complete and you feel that the results are unique and a significant advancement in knowledge. Research papers typically contain an abstract, an introduction, experimental details, analysis of results including tables and figures, conclusions and a list of references. Preparing figures or tables, analyzing the results and making conclusions are the easier tasks of writing a research paper since you must have spent a couple of years working on the problem. However, writing the introduction of the paper is the most difficult task and is often written at the end just to make sure that no important points of rationale that support your work are left out.  The reader should get an overall picture and important highlights of your contribution after reading the introduction so that he is enticed to delve further into your paper.

In the introduction, you briefly survey the field, and identify the limitations of the known approaches to justify why you have taken up the current research problem. You then go on to state the results you have obtained and why they are important in the present context. You may also highlight the limitations of your work in the broader context. In my view, writing the introduction part of a research paper is not easy because this is where you are making that emphatic selling point for your research. Students are generally clueless on writing the introduction to the research paper since it requires taking a broader view of the research area. This invariably leads them to read a variety of published papers to look for leads on how to build their case as the most novel and original idea with respect to the knowledge already known.

Borrowing a few words from others sentences to beautify the sentences in your own manuscript by itself cannot be called plagiarism as long as you have not borrowed the ideas. However, students whose native language is not English or those who are not fluent in English are tempted to use the easier way of “copying and pasting” of entire sentences. This is called literal plagiarism. The introduction of a thesis or a research paper is the one where you will find most cases of literal plagiarism. Even if cosmetic changes are made in the sentences, it does not keep you from being called a plagiarist. Let me illustrate this with an example. The following  sentences are from my research paper.

Original text: Bipolar transistors exhibit a number of significant advantages such as well-controllable characteristics, high speed, high gain, and low output resistance. These are excellent properties for mixed-signal circuit design and analog amplifiers. An emergent trend in modern high-density Very Large Scale Integrated circuits is the integration of bipolar transistors with complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology on thin silicon-on-insulator (SOI).

Let us say an author copies the above text in his paper with slight modifications (in italics) as given below.

 Copied text with minor modifications: Bipolar transistors show a number of significant advantages such as well-controllable characteristics, high gain, high speed, and small output resistance. These are useful characteristics for mixed-signal circuit design and analog amplifiers. A modern trend in high-density VLSI circuits is the integration of bipolar transistors with CMOS technology on thin silicon-on-insulator (SOI).

Carefully check the above two paragraphs. There are only a few changes in the choice of words. The modified and copied text will still be considered as literal plagiarism if the original source is not cited at the end of the copied text. I would even suggest that you put the modified and copied text in quotes or in italics and cite the original reference. This is to make sure that the reader is aware that the material has been taken from a different source. But this does not mean that you put every sentence in a written paragraph in quotes followed by a reference. This indeed has happened with one of my students. He brought a manuscript in which every alternate sentence is in quotes followed by a reference number. Such a collection of quotes does not lead to any original intellectual contribution and looks awkward.

If you examine the original text given above, it has three sentences. The first/second sentence is a general statement about bipolar transistors and therefore is standard stuff. However, the third sentence conveys an idea or a thought attributable to the original author. Only an expert working in the field could say it authoritatively. When the student copies a statement or thought from another paper because that sentence perfectly conveys what the student wanted to say, there is another danger. You might have copied an idea too along with the language of the sentence. You might not have used this idea in your paper. However, you have failed to acknowledge that the original author is the one who has presented that point of view. This is called idea adoption. If the plagiarist tries to hide the original source to represent the idea as his own during the idea adoption, it leads to intelligent plagiarism.

What we tend to forget is that it is not possible for two different human beings to exactly write the same set of sentences on a given idea. If you have watched a nice movie and wanted to convey the story to your friend, I am sure you would tell it in your own words. We can similarly summarize a written text without the need to copy from the original source. Let me re-write my original text given above to illustrate how you can avoid literal plagiarism.

Modified text: The significant advantages of bipolar transistors are (i) well-controllable characteristics, (ii) high speed, (iii) high gain, and (iv) low output resistance. These benefits make them highly useful in mixed-signal and analog amplifier circuit design. Integration of bipolar transistors with complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology on thin silicon-on-insulator (SOI) is an emerging trend in modern high-density VLSI integrated circuits.

While there is no literal plagiarism in the above paragraph, the view-point expressed in the last sentence needs a citation of the original source although the view-point is re-written. However nicely you may summarize an idea of another author, you must remember that the idea is not yours and must, therefore, acknowledge the original source. Failure to do so can land you in intelligent plagiarism which is even more malicious compared to literal plagiarism.

Students beware! When you indulge either in literal plagiarism or intelligent plagiarism either knowingly or unknowingly, you are putting all the authors in the manuscript at risk. Detection of plagiarism after publishing the paper can result in serious consequences to the organization where you work, and can severely damage your reputation and that of the co-authors.

Academic institutes should evolve an enforceable policy defining the boundaries between fair use and plagiarism and make this policy widely available to their communities via their websites. This plagiarism policy should help the academic communities in improving their self-awareness about (i) what constitutes plagiarism and (ii) the consequences of plagiarism. Providing easy access to plagiarism detection tools through campus wide licensing will make it easier both for the students and the faculty to keep out of situations that can be classified as plagiarism.

We need to recognize that while plagiarism is bad, we can definitely prevent it from happening through good practices.

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The above article is posted on the following websites:

Indian Institute of Technology Delhi ; http://www.ece.fiu.edu/resource/ ;       Biochemical and Biotech Engineers Association ;       National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (NIIST)  ; Tomorrow’s Professor blog

University of Windsor;

Appeared in TOMORROW’S PROFESSOR  MAILING LIST sponsored by Stanford University’s Center for Teaching and Learning.  CLICK HERE

You may also like to read “Honestly speaking about academic dishonesty“.